


Heartspoon

by celestialskiff



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Affection, Autism Spectrum, Established Relationship, F/F, Family, Geology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 08:53:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19269889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestialskiff/pseuds/celestialskiff
Summary: They had come so far – two such improbable people, to this strange house, this strange snow.Sarina goes to Sweden to see where Seven is from.





	Heartspoon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cosmic_llin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_llin/gifts).



heartspoon (1400s): the small hollow at the base of the breastbone

 

Sarina sat on the floor with the small, round child. He was very determinedly showing her his board game, but pushed her hand out of the way if she tried to join in. She folded her hands in her lap instead, watching his deliberation as he moved each piece. He looked up at her, making sure she was still watching. She nodded each time he looked up. _Yes, I’m watching you. I’m here._

She’d said to Seven, “I don’t know that I’ve ever been around a child,” and Seven had said, “Between one year old and twelve years old they are much easier than adults.” 

It was very warm in the house, and Sarina could hear the underfloor heating and the tick-tick-tick of the replicator system. The technology wasn’t obvious: it was an old-fashioned room, mostly wood, polished and smooth with long use and care. Sarina, at home on space stations, felt like she was in a museum. Though the child had touched everything, she wondered if it was all right for her to test the smoothness of the chair-legs. The child seemed like an exhibit too. 

Seven was talking to her cousins; they called her Annika, and had held Sarina’s hands in both of theirs in greeting. The kitchen smelt of fish and dill. Sarina was hot, insects fizzing under her skin, but was beginning to breathe normally again when two more children appeared – loud this time, louder than the toddler, though now he heard them he stood up and began to shriek. Sarina put her hands over her ears, rocked herself. 

She felt Seven’s hand on her wrist: a sudden, firm grasp. She shuddered. Then Seven’s voice: “Let me show you the rest of the house.” 

Sarina stood, skirt swishing around her legs. Honey-coloured spiral stairs led up from the adjoining living room. Creak of her feet on each step. Then a hallway, a huge window overlooking snow. Light bleeding from the sky. Sarina touched the cold glass. 

“They’re always loudest when they get home from school,” Seven said. “They have a lot of things to tell each other.” 

“You like them,” Sarina said. 

“Yes.” 

Sarina pressed her fingers to her eyelids, took another breath. Put her hands by her sides, looked at Seven. She was wearing a plum-coloured shirt Sarina had picked out for her. White skin against silk. Buttons opened to reveal the space below her breastbone: the place that was once known as the heartspoon. Sarina’s thought of her nose against that warm place that very morning, the smell of Seven’s skin. Seven’s fingers in her hair. 

“We don’t have to stay to dinner,” Seven said. 

But it was inconceivable not to. They had come so far – two such improbable people, to this strange house, this strange snow. “I’ll get used to it.” 

Seven nodded. They linked hands. 

**

Snow outside. White sheets, white drapes. Sarina rolled over: Seven was awake, leaning a PADD against her knees. The angles of her face, the augment at her brow, the line of her cheekbone. Seven glanced at her, returned her eyes to the PADD. Preferred not to be disturbed when she was reading. 

Sarina looked at the tilt of her face, imagined. Imagined Seven in a Borg cube, that green light. Millions of voices speaking as one. Unity with the universe. She’d read everything she could find about Borg when they’d first met. Knew about every Starfleet encounter, read all of Voyager’s public logs. So much, and so much left out. It took her a long time to realise she could just ask Seven. 

When Seven put the PADD aside, she brushed the hair off Sarina’s forehead, and said, “Was your period of rest satisfactory?” 

Sarina nodded. “Isn’t it strange, that we’re here? Together, in Sweden?” 

“We are both human, more or less. What could be more natural than being on Earth?” 

Sarina moved a little closer to Seven. The crispness of the bedsheets against her skin. The worn cotton of her nightgown. She touched Seven’s wrist. “Yes, but. But there were so many times when all of this felt impossible.” 

Seven looked out the window. Sarina followed her eyes: white on white on white. 

“Sometimes I forget I’m here, too. I think I’m still in space. I listen for the engines, for the sound of footsteps. The air here tastes wrong on my tongue.” Seven looked over at Sarina. Didn’t meet her eyes; had always understood not to. “I dream often that I’m on a Borg cube. The light. When I wake up, I try to catch the scent – bodies, plasma. I don’t know. I can’t smell it here.” She sighed. “In some sense, I will always be there.” 

“Me too,” Sarina said, then coughed and corrected herself. “I’ll always be in a closed facility. I won’t be able to talk.” 

A sound from downstairs: crash of pots, sizzle of fat in a pan. Sarina flinched. She didn’t know yet how she felt about Seven’s family. She wasn’t ready to meet them again. 

“I read all your logs,” Seven said. “All the files I could find.” 

Sarina felt a warmth in her chest. It was nice to know Seven cared. “I didn’t have access to all of yours. And I don’t break into secure files any more.” 

“Why not?” 

“It’s not what people do.” 

Seven nodded. “I can give them to you, if you like.” 

“Yes, please.” Sarina stretched her shoulders. “I like the snow. Your family is rather loud though.” 

“They are, especially the children,” Seven agreed. “They’ll be leaving soon. Then we can have breakfast.” 

“It’s funny, isn’t it,” Sarina said. “All the names people give to meals.” 

Seven nodded. A soft silence. Then she said, “My supervisor said perhaps I shouldn’t date someone with your history. That I should be in a relationship with someone who had a better understanding of human social norms.” 

Sarina wrinkled her nose. “What did you say?” 

“That it was not in her remit to comment on my personal relationships, and that I had noticed two errors in her most recent calculations.” 

“Oh, good.” Sarina sat up properly. “You’re the first person I’ve met who doesn’t make me tired. Who I can tolerate being with for long periods.” 

Seven smiled. A genuine crinkling smile around her eyes and mouth. It made Sarina glad. “I appreciate human relationships, but I enjoy the one I have with you the most. And it feels easiest.” 

Sarina closed the distance between their bodies. Chin against Seven’s shoulder. “It does, doesn’t it.”

**

Later, they took a tram through the city, and out to the lake, now frozen over. Snow lay on ice, making the transition from land to lake seamless. Signs were posted regularly to prevent people from walking unknowing onto the ice. A few geese plodded back and forth, and honked drearily. 

Seven had made pancakes, spread them with sugar and lingenberry jam. Sarina could still taste it in her mouth, and coffee. She always drank coffee in quick, furtive sips, waiting for someone to take it from her, to tell her she wasn’t allowed stimulants. 

Sarina pulled her scarf closer round her throat. 

“It’s a warm day, for February,” Seven said. 

“I’m not used to it.”

Seven nodded. “I found it hard at first, too. Do you want to go back?” 

But Sarina was drinking in the cold air like a milkshake. Sweet and painful at once. “Does someone feed the geese?” 

“Yes: there’s a place closer to the park gates where people put down grain. There are a lot more of them down there.” 

Sarina watched the geese traversing the snowy lake. She couldn’t help but anthropomorphise them, think that they looked gloomy. “These don’t like the crowd,” she said. 

“Can you walk further? I want to show you one of the famous geological formations.” 

“You don’t need to worry about me: I’m perfectly fit,” Sarina said, and then skidded a little on the unfamiliar ground. She let Seven take her arm. 

When they reached it, Sarina knew this must was what Seven had wanted to show her. “It’s a glacial erratic,” Sarina said, looking at the huge black stone, standing clear of the snow, making the layer of snow look like nothing more than a dust of icing sugar. Then, “It’s too big to be a glacial erratic.” 

“There has been long discussion over whether it is a moraine or a glacial erratic,” Seven said. She was looking up at the rock with a half-smile. Proud. As though she’d brought it here. 

Within it, layers of stone folded back in on themselves over and over and were more obvious because of the snow clinging to the ridges. Sarina felt proud too. “It was just a moment ago that we were learning to be tetrapods.” 

Almost everyone struggled to follow the route of her thoughts. Didn’t know how she’d arrived at a particular conclusion. But Seven said, “Hmm. Yes, 400 million years means little in space.” 

“So isn’t it strange?” Sarina said, thinking of their conversation earlier, in bed. “Isn’t it special, the two of us being here? More than just that we’re an experiment and a former Drone. Isn’t it strange that somehow my cells found your cells?” 

“And quite ordinary,” Seven said, swinging their hands together. 

“Yes. And quite ordinary.”


End file.
